Long-time WUWT readers will recognize the title as being a spoof on the infamous line about snow uttered by Dr. David Viner of the University of East Anglia some years ago in the Independent (now deleted, but preserved here) where he claimed in an article Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past by Charles Onians:
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
Less than a year ago, the New York Times claimed in a headline: California Braces for Unending Drought and the phrase “permanent drought” was in use in the media.
Wired claimed: Thanks El Niño, But California’s Drought Is Probably Forever The Sacramento Bee wailed: Opinion: What if California’s drought is permanent? Over at Salon, where they know better than everybody about everything, they claimed: “It could last decades”: 5 shocking facts about California’s drought
Now we have headlines like: Drenched: How L.A. went from bone-dry to 216% of normal rainfall in four months
The drought map, is shrinking compared to a year ago. Only 11 percent of California remains in severe drought, less than 1 percent of California now in ‘extreme’ drought, and most of Northern California is drought free:
Source: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA
According to the California Dept. of Water Resources, 8 of 10 major reservoirs are above the 100% mark for historical averages:
Source: http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/rescond.pdf
And much of the USA is drought free now:
When less than two years ago, NYT said:
Droughts appear to be intensifying over much of the West and Southwest as a result of global warming. Over the past decade, droughts in some regions have rivaled the epic dry spells of the 1930s and 1950s.
Looks like the doomsayers were wrong…again.
Case in point…Michael Mann https://thinkprogress.org/amp/p/33195982384c?gi=14dc1d465333
Griff? Ohhhh, Griiii-iiiiif. There’s no polar bears here. You can comment!
The Latest: California Retains Drought Measures
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-california-water-conservation-shows-progress-45359193
California has retained largely symbolic measures guiding water conservation during drought.
The move by the State Water Resources Board came Wednesday as the state has seen one of its wettest winters in years.
The board, which enacts regulations, relaxed its requirements last year, allowing local districts to set their own conservation measures.
Roughly 80 percent of those districts now say they have ample supplies and aren’t requiring residents to cut back on how often they water lawns and flush toilets.
However, board members decided to retain the measures at least until spring as a precaution against the return of dry weather.
Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency in 2014.
———
http://drought.ca.gov/topstory/top-story-69.html
State Water Board Continues Water Conservation Regulations, Prohibitions Against Wasting Water
February 8, 2017 – Today the State Water Resources Control Board extended its existing water conservation regulations, which prohibit wasteful practices such as watering lawns right after rain and set a conservation mandate only for water suppliers that do not have enough water reserves to withstand three more dry years.
Read More
Hmm, I wonder if the CA city I live in will repeal the recent water rate increases that they blamed on the residents who are conserving too much water and it affected their income?
When I was a kid I used to have to walk uphill five miles to school through the drought. It was hell.
Times have changed somewhat-
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/adelaide-mum-vasu-sharrock-is-furious-her-dehydrated-son-kuvam-was-denied-water-at-mcdonalds-store-because-he-couldnt-pay/news-story/7f6a826a010a6848e18f4fa0390854df
According to these typical lefty victimhood media types you’d be the subject of a Royal Commission into child abuse nowadays but take consolation skimming through the comments that most of us are fed up with their crap.
I don’t agree with the southern CA drought map. They have exceeded their rainfall for the year…let’s see some totals…
I see someone has already mentioned The Very Wonderful Tim Flannery, and his prediction of permanent drought in Australia.
Not too long afterwards, Queensland became Lake Queensland, and huge chunks of NSW and Victoria were flooded as well.
Our (California) underground aquifers are severely depleted. They were critical to us coping with the drought. Some contained water that was thousands of years old. Recharging them will take years, decades, centuries, or eons. They will not get us through the next drought. Also, our snowpack melts faster than it used to, and we cannot store nearly all that early meltwater. So the deep snowpack currently accumulated is not nearly as useful as it appears to outsiders. Therefore we must conserve our surface water reservoirs.
Just keep making predictions of disaster. Sooner or later, one of them is bound to come true (with, possibly, a little massaging) and the reputation of Science for comprehensive understanding of natural phenomena will be confirmed.
Oddly, this seems to work for astrologers and soothsayers, too. Coincidence?
Let’s see…..
It was wet until it went dry.
Then it was really dry…. until it rained and snowed a lot.
And the climate data says this has all happened before. Many times….
Linear Thinking In A Cyclical World – MaxPhoton
http://www.maxphoton.com/linear-thinking-cyclical-world/
Thinking? You are too generous.
Shouldn’t the UN /IPCC be fining Californians for exceeding their drought allocation water resource? oh wait…
Perfect example of why climate models cannot predict climate…….which is the weather over long periods with any skill. They have some use in projecting long term temperatures if you give them the right equations and understand their limitations.
El Ninos iincrease odds of rain for California, yet this weak La Niña year is the one bombing that state with numerous heavy precipitation,events. El Ninos reflect the ocean temp in just one region of a massive Pacific Ocean. Often, like this year, the temperature profile in the Pacific outside of this small region dominates the flow pattern aimed at the US West Coast.
““Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,”
as it happens, at this moment it is snowing in London, UK.
The neighbors I have who have been echoing everyone from Gov. Moonbeam to the NYTimes to Bill Nye that the drought was now permanent have been strangely quiet since the holidays.
I said to one “This drought is relentless” and he seemed more angry that the CW was wrong than he was happy that we were getting much-needed water/snow in the state.
“I believe the Centralia plant is owned/operated by Transalta, not Seattle Power and Light. ”
NW Sage you are correct but what is your point. Seattle City Light did not shut down their coal plant and build renewable, they sold the plant and it is still running.
“Droughts appear to be intensifying over much of the West and Southwest as a result of global warming.”
NO IDIOTS, California goes through periodic droughts because the southern part of the state is in the 4th largest DESERT on the planet. Add 25+ million people as water users with no increase storage capacity in my lifetime (63 years) and voila!
Good Grief!
SoCal evokes images of the concrete-paved channels of the LA River, which rushes stormwater (mixed with treated wastewater) out to sea instead of being retained. They should have goals of zero wastewater discharge and zero stormwater discharge from any areas that don’t directly sheet flow to the ocean. They act like they are the most environmentally proactive state, and they inexplicably fail when it comes to water resouces. So wasteful.
Geez, California children don’t even know what gender they are. Let’s not confuse them more.
Oh lookie … this happened today …
http://sfist.com/attachments/sfist_caleb/resist%21%21%21.png
That’ll show ’em.
….until man made tidal changes wash it away!
I couldn’t resist!!
Funny.
Colorado’s snowpack is still holding at 150 % of average. It is extraordinary that all 6 drainages, including the southern river valleys, are brimming in the same year, and for such a long time. The Colorado River, and the southern river systems are typically the ones eyeballed by the alarmists, since they feed the arid states below Colorado, and indeed present low numbers most of the time between El Ninos. I think It’s only these big, intermittent rain (snow) events racing across from the Pacific and dumping deep snow in the Rockies that nudge our decadal averages upward. Without El Ninos / La Ninas most of the south half of the state would look a lot drier than it does. The Colorado River is now at 149%. The San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan Rivers (considered all one system), is currently at a whopping 166% of average, and the Upper Rio Grande system, which drains out the south of the square, is reading 151%. These are very satisfying numbers, and only leave one wishing for more storage capacity.
https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/states/co/snow/state/daily/co_update_snow.pdf
Patterns seem to be aligned to keep pumping moisture into SW.